


Lights

by ruebellab



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 20:54:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1442497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruebellab/pseuds/ruebellab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor wants to do the things he says he doesn’t do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lights

**Author's Note:**

> Can be read as Ten/Rose if you want, but as usual I had Nine in mind.

This definitely breaks the rules, but here he is, doing it anyway, snapping this photo - capturing this moment, keeping it, storing it away in a far more tangible sense than the way her face has written itself throughout his memories.

He has rules - a few left over from his people and their archaic constrictive definitions of what a Time Lord is and isn’t, a few he’s made himself over the years, necessary as his companions come and go, and a few he made when Rose came aboard.

His people forbade fraternisation with lesser species, but he’s been travelling with humans for centuries now - practically an honorary citizen of earth, him. Still, there are things, domestic, human things he just doesn’t do.

His companions, they move on, they find something better, and sometimes - the worst of times, they are lost, so he’s learned not to hold on too tight. He remembers each and every one though - and what it was about them that made them so remarkable, but he always keeps it at that, a memory.

And when Rose came to travel with him, it was apparent almost straight away that he would need new rules, clearer, firmer rules that would keep him from falling further than he ever had before.

Sometimes at night - night for her anyway, he says, reminding her that you’ve got to have a sun and a planet with a rotational axis to have proper day and night, to which she rolls her eyes and drops onto the hard grating next to his spread of tools - she finds her way back to the console room.

He’d like to ask her if she’s cold, her strong, smooth legs bare under the hem of an overlarge t-shirt, but he won’t - he isn’t looking, he isn’t noticing, and he certainly isn’t thinking of how it would be to press soft kisses to the tops of her feet, her calves, her knees, the insides of her thighs.

Usually he says nothing at all, and Rose seems content to sit with him, listening to the embracing whir of the TARDIS engines, occasionally passing him tools and humming long-gone earth tunes in her honeyed tones.

Tonight though, because this has become something of a habit - once or twice a week now, especially after a particularly trying adventure, he’s ready for her. So when he hears the patter of her feet approaching, he’s already got the TARDIS in position.

It’s just a nebula, nothing special really, but he knows she’ll love it - all colour and dancing light against a backdrop of pinpricked stars, and oh how she does.

He’s got both doors open wide - the cushion of a forcefield creating a little bubble around their magnificent ship and she greets the vision with a little ‘ah’ of surprise, her face breaking into that smile he’s come to love so much.

And there it is - that little problem, that thing that breaks all the rules. He needs to capture this moment and make it something he can hold in his hands, because he wants more - more than illicit fraternising, more than companionship, more than just a memory - he wants so much more.

Rose, he says, and she turns, one foot still dangling over the edge of the doorframe, hand playing in her hair and she’s beautiful.

He wants to do the things he says he doesn’t do - bring her tea in the morning and let her fall asleep on his shoulder at night. He wants to touch her, hold her, feel the warmth of her skin, the fall of her breath, the beating of her heart - he wants to dance with her and really dance with her.

He wants more than a memory, he wants forever.

And as he looks at her, haloed in pink with golden light dancing in her eyes, he thinks it just might be possible.


End file.
